PO301 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Opportunity Cost, Moral Authority
Document Summary
Some people might argue that modern states aren"t democracies and therefore no perfect political obligation to obey the laws. Perhaps therefore under some conditions there could be content-independent reasons to comply with the law. Persuasive argument because different laws benefit different people to different extents. Surely can"t ever perfectly know that you aren"t going to harm people. When everyone obeys the law it means that everyone is safer" in the sense that everyone can predict what is going to do. Laws which serve a purpose of coordinating and making everyone safer - distinction between laws which are beneficial and ones which aren"t. But if everyone can pick and choose which laws to obey then the system breaks down, they are free-riding. Loads of us have obeyed the law because it"s the law and it has a penalty, sanction, or opportunity cost attached to not doing so - not interested in this.
